Aibu to be angry about this - dd left out group/party

[Lago1]

So a bit of background, my daughter is a lovely, yet shy and reserved child, who has been dancing for a few years with a group of girls and has grown in confidence around them. One particular girl, she sees as a good friend and they share another hobby which they do weekly together. This morning at dancing she hears some of the others discussing a sleepover and asked in front of the mum if she can join and the mum says of course. She comes home excited and gets her things ready, then I received a text 15 minutes before I was due to drop her off saying I'm sorry dd doesn't want her to come. Now I know maybe she shouldn't have asked but it was nice to see her confidence and she would have not even considered that her friend didn't want her there and probably thought of it as an oversight. There were no excuses made, and not even any effort to try and protect her feelings in this all. I am so sad for her. Aibu to feel really pissed off?

I've been really shocked about the pages of vitriol towards a 12 year-old girl who, as far as we know, has done nothing wrong. It's really interesting to observe how easily a group of adult women have ganged up to call someone else's child a 'bitch'.

This is very sad. I think the 'friend' owes it to your DD to give her an explanation. Maybe your DD is too quiet. Just be extra kind to your DD and suggest she find other better friends. My heart goes out to her.

I haven’t read all the comments so I’m sorry if this has already been discussed, but it did cross my mind that they girl whose party it was may not actually be the child who didn’t want your daughter there (and I would have felt hurt and angry too, but I did vote YABU as it is up to the party host to invite who they like and I have always been someone who over-invites because I would hate to hurt someone’s feelings, but I think this is my boundary issue and I think it is reasonable yet unfortunate in how it happened in your situation). Anyway, from my experience it could quite easily have been another child pressuring the party child not to invite your DD. This happened lots when I was going through those school years, and I saw it frequently as a primary school teacher. From what I read of what you have said, if this party girl happily accepts your invitations and your DD is lovely (as I expect is the case), then it could well be that there is some controlling other child who wants to manipulate the party child and exclude your DD, jealousy and insecurities are sadly far too common, and some children feel threatened by other children’s friendships (as adults do!). The party child could even be too scared to tell their mum the truth as this kind of coercive control at that age would likely be something that child may feel ashamed by if she knows her actions are unfair or unkind to your child or she is scared to be placed in an awkward position. I think in this situation I would be hurt but do my best to give the party child the benefit of the doubt and continue supporting your daughter in the way she wants to carry on with the friendship (or not). I definitely wouldn’t teach her that friendship are some super binding commitment (marriage I think is different), but friendships…I think too much damage is done by ‘friends’ exploiting other people and actually teaching your daughter that she should be kind to others but not messed around by them is the way to go and that friendships ado have different seasons and the loss of a friend can be very sad and painful but that there are plenty of lovely people in the world and not all friends will stay close and be in your life for the long term, so continue on with the journey through life, keeping the genuine best friends who will stick around and making new friends as friendships arise. That’s only my opinion though.

@lottiegarbanzo i suppose when you think of it mumsnet is full of women who report having no friends and d for husbands so makes sense that they think being mean is normal? I’m so glad I don’t know anyone like this, not sure I’d know what to do with them either! I did nanny for a really mean couple before, maybe they were part of the mean girl club too 🤔

I should add that I don’t think this incident is enough to advise your DD to wind down her friendship with the party girl. But keep an eye out for her and be led by what she wants to do. I wouldn’t be influencing her that this party girl doesn’t value her friendship or doesn’t like her as it doesn’t sound like that is generally true. I think there could well be another explanation, one which you may never learn unfortunately. All the best. Your DD sounds lovely, and I hope this all turns out to be nothing.

Just seen your update OP, from what your Child has said it looks like these kids aren’t being kind and maybe haven’t been for a while. I would not encourage this ‘friendship’ any further, and good for her to seek out new friends.

The fact that your daughter asked to come when she wasn’t invited really is quite irrelevant to me in this. Yes, she shouldn’t have, but if she is the type to see the good in everyone and is/was close with the girl whose sleepover it is, then I can see how it might be inconceivable to her that she intentionally wasn’t invited and would have put it down to an oversight.

The main issue here for me is that the other girl was really horrible not to invite her when they were previously close, and to talk about it in front of her!

It could be one of the other girls has said she doesn’t want your DD there and pressured her friend not to invite her.

Really sad, your DD sounds lovely! It’s always the nice ones that end up hurt. She needs to make better friends and not invite the other girl anywhere in future!

I’d be pissed off too!

I don’t think she’s automatically entitled to an invite, but the girls should never have been discussing it in front of her. I vividly remember being a pre-teen/teenage girl and the bitchiness - they would’ve discussed it knowing she wasn’t invited and that’s just rude.

The mother may have felt on the spot in saying yes, but she shouldn’t have backtracked then. She should’ve told her daughter that she had said yes so on this occasion she was invited to attend. You cant uninvite someone - it’s rude.

Seems a lesson in manners is needed all round!

Ah I feel bad your daughter. I think it was insensitive of the other girls to be talking about the sleepover in front of your daughter knowing she wasn’t invited. At that age it could be that one of them wanted to talk to the others about periods, boyfriend etc and didn’t feel comfortable with everyone there? Or they all love gaming and your daughter doesn’t? I used to get so upset when my daughter was excluded and used to overcompensate by always inviting the girls she wanted to be friends with round. Now she has a couple of close friends where the feeling is reciprocal and she is much happier

Gosh. You've turned on this little girl very quickly. She started out " good friend" and "very easygoing". Now she's "loud", "a chav" and has some sort of inappropriate "banter" that you're hiding to suggest it's ongoing bullying.

Your DD can be friends or not with whoever she likes. Demonising a child for stepping out of line when she didn't want a dance friend staying over at a school friend party is not right though, and I see as being driven by you. It wasn't great to get a last minute message, but you really have to stop escalating this, it's very unpleasant.

How does that work if you think friendships have to be permanent as per another post?

So from your update op I assume they have been unkind to your dd for a quite some time - banter is always shorthand for being spiteful at this age, and your dd has been reluctant to call them out as they are familiar to her - and form the rump of the group no doubt. Now this has surfaced about the sleepover you are now aware of the bullying. And it is bullying for sure.

I would do one of two things:

1. Move the dance class and make new friends. You need to give this some serious thought as Queen Bee party girl is likely not to let your dd skip off with new friends without a word. It is most likely to spill out into the class. Start researching your options now and introducing the idea to dd

2. Continue with the class, and make considerable efforts with the other girls your dd has highlighted and move her away from that group.

Either way the lifts, playdates etc all stop now, and you need to assess with this is a healthy class for your child. It is only a dance class and is causing such stress I would just pull out. You have used the word 'chavs' and I wonder why you even want your dd around people that are clearly not nice. Setting aside my revulsion for the word, be more selective, encourage your dd to be the same. She does not need to be grateful for friends just because she is quiet.

Wow! That is a masterclass in gas lighting MRex

Have you forgotten the part where the mother called 15 minutes before the sleepover to let a 12 year old know she was now uninvited from a sleepover??

The other dance class girls were invited, op's dd was not, then was invited and then uninvited! What part of that strikes you as acceptable behaviour on the part of the other mother/girl????

Seriously it is not op that is being unpleasant here, it is the other parent and the girl that has clearly been unkind for a while. Of course this situation is going to raise questions about the whole friendship and what is going on. Op is right to check - and 12 year old girls 'left to it' can behave badly, that is why parenting and guidance is needed

Was it the whole dance class that were invited?

On a side note could I please get some positive stories about dance school? Mine is only 4 and her dance mates obviously all seem lovely right now and she seems to get on well with them all. I'm now dreading it if she carries it on though 😐

"I just think if roles were reversed I would speak to my dd about why, and explain how friendships should be permanent not just as and when it suits,"

Friendships absolutely don't have to be permanent, especially through the teen years. As said, they are all at different development stages and are going from being children to young adults. They'll change their interests and personalities etc. Very rarely are we friends to the same level as everyone we work with, all of our neighbours, other mum's etc, or even family members, if you are then you are probably living in a Amish type community. Young teens are no different. Both girls are learning to negotiate friendships and acquaintances. The other girls didn't want her at the sleepover and the Mother made a mistake. She was probably hoping that her DD changed her mind, which is why she left it to the last minute. It's better to teach our children that we aren't going to be liked by everyone and equally there's going to be people who we don't like, but it isn't a reflection on us or them.

It's like everywhere else, there'll be people who click and become friends. It depends on if you see if as somewhere were your DD does dance, or you've joined in the hope of a friendship group.

How could daughter not know? She’s assuming she’s going then not what are you to say? I went through all this with my daughter it’s really horrible. In her case it was a mother who let dd think she was part of an invite to a festival ( they were a bit older) then rang us the week beforehand to say her daughter wanted another girl to go. This with excited preparations made. The mother was actually a teacher at another local secondary so you would think know better. My fab dd was subjected to group playground treatment. Luckily it was near end of school and she moved on made new set of friends never looked back . They all still know each other but not in same circle. It remains a mystery what happened though.

Thank goodness you have finally spoken to your daughter about not having to be friends with this girl

What a shame she hadn't already told you about how awful the car rides were getting for her.

Most friendships are definitely not permanent! Only a very special one or two tick that box.

Sounds like this friendship has run its course. It happens at that age. Girls develop at different rates, bitchiness can start to creep in and it can be better to regroup or find new friends.

Completely agree. We have one side of the story only but the ease at which posters name-call and judge is scary. From the update it's clear that there has previously been tension.

I thought this was going to develop towards dd being poor girl not the friend. In the context of adult life of course we don’t invite ourselves but at 12 we are learning and this goes both ways. The friend has always been invited to gatherings at OPs. The main person at fault is the friend’s mother who has behaved appallingly. She should have contacted OP with a completely honest piece of information as soon as it came up. By phone not text.

I've already said permanent was the wrong word - wish you could edit your posts here.
I'm not demonising her at all, I've never said it was a friend that I would chose for my dd but if she's friends with someone I'm not going to stop it because I think she is a but of a chav.
On a slightly different note, any advise on how to deal with kiddos that do keep things to themselves? Obviously she's been upset before about this and not wanted to tell me? Or could it be that she was only mildly bothered so didn't want to make a song and dance over it? It's hard to know if she gets really upset about things but hides it well, or if she genuinely is more resilient than I think and genuinely doesn't feel things as deeply as I'm expecting her to.